Sunday, November 06, 2005

Writing on my wireless laptop in a wi-free zone.Leave aside wi-fi, there is not even broadband yet in my house.Looks like some PROBLEMS with the cable guys, as the security says.Hmm, but its a pretty decent society, I wonder why it still takes so long.Till then its thye lousy Reliance dialup which throws up an extra bill of a 1000 bucks for a speed of 15kbps, average.Google opens pretty well, but the links don't. We can't yet drive a Ferrari on Indian roads eh.

A post I read about an article by The Guardian set me thinking, of WTO and patents and process patents, of AIDS vaccines and Viagra and Cialis, of Bill and Melinda gates foundation of third world countries and bulk drugs and generics and off patent drugs and APIs.I only slightly remember the terms, the words, and have no clue about the numbers. And I am too lazy to google on this speed. I am also thinking about Differential pricing and third world countries and if moving from a process patent to a product patent regime will be a boon or a ban.In my class of 2004 and WTO and patent regime was a hot topic. Drop of a hat and somebody or the other would talk about it. Another was MFN and MFA and of textile quota, BPO of course was another favorite. Thank god I have a poor memory, otherwise My mind would have been caught up in the tangles of all the numbers, of percentages and year of expiry of a regime or agreement. And, of Protectionism and Nationalism. Ah, sometimes, I wished I was an economist, but even then I would have turned a Freakonomist.

This particular article mentions about from The Gaurdian says that drug companies have stopped developing drugs, except drugs like Viagra( quite true we haven't had a super drug since Viagra and for a long time before that) because they are afraid generic companies would Break their patents.

Well, I was under the impression that generic companies only produces off patent drugs, and I believe India has also stopped producing Patented Drugs via the process patent route. Didn't we sign in the WTO that we will move into Product patents from 2005. Cipla or Sun can't make copies of drugs anymore. I am a little confused now, but if so, It might do some good in the long run but it sure will hurt a lot of people by the way. But again its like the Piracy debate and differential pricing. But again, The Guardian won't write something wrong. My idea was about affordability of certain things in poorer countries.Piracy can't be stopped, there is too much demand that supplies in one form or the other will always crop up. Well, while somebody earns 40K INR a month in India, his equivalent in the US might earn at least 6 K Dollars which is 2,50,000 INR. And wait, what does someone earning 40000 INR a month needs, a Car, a decent 1BHk if he is single, and consumer durables and mostly the same stuff that the person in US will need. And, but for the house, most other things are as cheap or cheaper in the USA, thanks to China and Walmart. Yet they earn at least 6 times hmmm. Even petrol is cheaper. I could never accept this, but this is the fallacy of Economy. Now, these people, with the extra money they saved from petrol and Walmart, buy some expensive medicine (healthcare is borne by the govt and Insurance anyway) and expensive books.But since we have spent all our money on Petrol, rent, EMIs and credit card bill, we have very little money left for product patented medicines and Books and Music and Movies, and so when there are vendors who sell them cheap or share for free, We can’t help ourselves. Afterall we pay the same price for Pizza and more for an Ipod than the Americans. How can we pay 99 cents to Itunes when we paid more for an Ipod though we earn 1/5th an American. Please give us cheaper fuel Mr Minister! And better roads so that we may not have to spend 100% more than we should be burning of the expensive petrol. Bhaar mein jaaye copyright. If they really want to stop piracy, they should learn a thing or two about differential pricing. It makes better business sense to sell a million books at 95 rupee a pop than sell 5000 copies at 975 bucks a pop. yeah, Yeah! I know about royalty. Why can't the royalty be a percentage of sales or profits instead of per copies sold. We don’t need no book jacket or the fancy print. Now that product patent regime is started, I don’t know if we will be able to afford some medicines. I’d better increase my health insurance cover. Or maybe drug discovery won’t be so expensive in India afterall. Who knows DrReddy’s might just a Scorpio. Scorpio cost just $120 Million to M&M to design. And for life saving drugs that are required in doses of millions in the third world countries, the Roches and Pfizers of the world could stop being greedy for once. After all a 20 year exclusive marketing right to a new drug is not for nothing.

I promised myself I won’t watch a movie today, but then garam masala seem to be a nice comedy. Rediff gave a nice review . Maybe I will try my luck.

2 Comments:

Man! Are you living in Mumbai? In Delhi, I have an airtel broadband connection which gives me 128kbps @Rs 700/- per month with unlimited download & yeah the speed is 128kbps not 15-20kbps...Just hit enter and the website gets displayed.I think Airtel broadband must be in Mumbai..why don't you try it?

Yup oops! about piracy and pay scale disparity betwwen India and US - you are absolutely right. A similar person like us, will live a cool,enjoyable & much healthier and wealthier if in US.